News Analysis

New Spend-O-Meter shows what Vermont spends, where it goes, and what it costs you

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By Dave Soulia, FYIVT.com

Vermont state government will spend more than $9.3 billion this fiscal year — about $297 every second. A new ‘Spend-O-Meter’ page on FYIVT.com tracks that money in real time, follows it to its destination, and measures it against what Vermonters actually earn and pay. Everything here comes from public records, and every source is named.

Vermont’s budget year runs from July 1 to June 30. For the year that began July 1, 2026, the Legislature approved $9,381,460,606 in spending — Act 144, signed by the Governor on June 16, 2026. The counter spreads that total evenly across the year to show where the budget clock stands right now.

Budgeted so far this fiscal year as of 9:45 AM today, Friday August 14: $1,140,264,752. 

For more information, including rate of taxation compared to wages (spoiler alert – taxes are higher!), click here. 

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Categories: News Analysis

5 replies »

  2. Excellent attempt at analyzing the State spending problem!

    First, it should be pointed out that in the section “Where Vermont income actually comes from”, the green “government” figure is only Federal payments: it does not seem to include tax payer funded wages paid to local and state workers and contractors ( eg. teachers, road crews ).

    Second, In the “Follow the money” section, the burden of State worker retirement and healthcare funding becomes apparent: We should be asking “Why are tax payers responsible for paying these things?” Non-government workers have to save for these things out of their income over the course of their life, why shouldn’t the state workers be expected to do the same?

    Third, the “When Vermonters start keeping what they earn” section is not accurate: it does not take into account the compounding effect of payroll and income taxes on top of things like registration fees, the various sales taxes, and property taxes (which do not go away completely even for the bottom 20%).

    Currently almost 1 in 3 full time working Vermonters work for local, State, or Federal government (directly or as contractors). This means it takes half the income from 2 non-government workers to support each Government worker. This does not include supporting the state retirees on the backs of private producing workers (who do not have the benefit of guaranteed retirement and health care).

    Meanwhile, the legislature and state agencies continue to shut down all means of production in the state: taking land out of production, vilifying independent agricultural and forest product producers, increasing energy costs, and regulating manufacturing out of existence. Totally absent from any report I have seen is Vermont’s Import/Export trade balance. An “Economy” can not be based on government spending alone for very long and survived.

    In the very near future, there will be more Government workers than Private Producing workers, at which point the system will collapse resulting in all the things that go along with a failed communist takeover (riots, armed conflict, food shortages…just look at your history books)

    • im not sure my first message got through so im writing again, state workers do add to there retirement, a % . its not all paid by the state of vermont. also they pay taxes just like anybody else ,

    • “It’s not all paid by State of Vermont”… if any portion of retirement benefits for any state worker (or teacher or federal worker) is paid by the taxpayers of Vermont, it is fraudulent. I know for a fact that this was a HUGE issue being talked about before 2020: Underfunded state worker retirement program. That discussion has disappeared from the news media. As a matter of fact, legacy broadcast media (and print media) no longer criticize the State of Vermont at all for *anything* they do … not one negative word about State policies or actions [it’s called Fascism “Nothing against the state” … this is a topic for another debate].

      I personally know people who are on state and federal retirement…they consistently vote to increase taxes, knowing full well that they will get union mandated retirement benefit increases to match or exceed any tax increases. Most also own more than one home (here in VT, and another down south).

      Guess again, Jeffrey.

  3. if the state would stop catering to illegals, they would not be crying broke right now !!!